Business Listens To A Need

Seminole Business

CASSELBERRY - Beverly Campbell started her hearing-aid manufacturing business with a high school diploma, a $25,000 loan, a $10,000 debt, four employees and a lot of anxiety.

Twenty-eight years later, Magnatone Hearing Aid Corp. on Cypress Way takes in roughly $8 million in annual revenues, employs 106 and is ready to expand.

The company is regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and distributes its product to retail operations and hearing aid specialists. Campbell said her company is one of the oldest in the area that manufactures custom-made hearing aids.

Campbell, 58, of Longwood, has been grooming her children, Cindy, 35, and Donald Campbell, 32, to take over the company since their teens. Cindy Campbell is vice president of marketing. Donald Campbell is vice president of operations.

``I'm tired. I've worked since I was 16,'' said Beverly Campbell, who is considering retirement in a few years.

``We are helping people to hear and communicate again and to overcome the stigma that having a hearing aid is a handicap,'' said Cindy Campbell.

``The neat thing about having a mother as boss is that you can be more blunt and more open with ideas that you might hesitate to present to a boss who is not family,'' said Donald Campbell, who started in the family business by peeling off box labels.

``Common sense and respecting your employees is the key to running a good business,'' said Beverly Campbell. ``I don't spend a lot of time in the office but prefer to be with the employees in the plant because I have the most cooperative and best employees a boss could have.''

Campbell said it is a labor-intensive business.

Campbell began working in hearing aid retail stores and laboratories 40 years ago. She also worked in manufacturing and was promoted to manager in Magnatone, a Miami company.

In 1971, she bought that company. After advertising and telephone solicitations, business improved and Magnatone moved to Altamonte Springs in 1975. In 1981, Campbell had her own facility built in Casselberry. It includes an 8,000-square-foot facility where the products are made and another similar-size building for sales and engineering personnel.

Donald Campbell said the hearing aid business is likely to grow in the coming years.

``There have been technological advances but no magic pills for hearing impairments,'' he said.

Audiologists submit patients' histories, test results and ear impressions to the company that designs the hearing aids. Campbell said there are hundreds of models of different strengths, sizes and components. Some hearing aids are smaller than earplugs and barely noticeable. Larger models worn behind the ear by more profoundly deaf people are usually imported from Germany.

A hearing aid usually lasts three to five years.

Employees, sometimes using magnifiers, microscopes and strong lights, painstakingly solder tiny wires and place circuitry and components such as microphones, volume controls, receivers, and telephone coils onto a small module which is then inserted into a mold of an ear impression. A crew inspects the final product.

``We were brought up with the saying, `Inspect what you expect,''' Donald Campbell said.

Computer programmable hearing aids are new on the market and help fit the hearing impaired with even more scientific adjusted hearing aids.

The company is seeking to hire a computer programmer and qualified salespeople with knowledge of electronics and audiology to keep pace with technological advances.